I am new to this website and was wanting to see if anyone had some good suggestions of what to put on my engine to get more power out of it. I already have a k&n cold air intake, exhaust system, throttle body spacer, and Edge programmer. And I don't want to spend too much on it but I am open to any suggestions. I would like to get around 400-425 hp out of it. Can my stock transmission and rear end handle that much power? Thanks

Alright.I see your point so what other bolt on stuff can I put on to get some more power out of it. the 400 hp was just a ball park figure. I am just looking for good throttle response and to be a little faster off the line.

As for your driveline, no your tranny won't handle that kind of power. Right out of the box GM trucks are equipped with a torque management system that only allows so much power to be put through the tranny at one time just for that reason. It certainly helps with longevity, but it's kind of lame for those of us who love to feel all the horsepower that 5.3 has (guys who really build up their trucks will always get this disabled). The stock tranny is really pretty weak, and only designed to handle the power that a stock 5.3 puts out. Your rear end will be able to handle a it ok I would imagine, but I don't know enough about these specific diffs to say for sure. I'd probably bet that 400+ hp would make it whine pretty good though.

That's what I was afraid of... so I will just forget about the 400 hp with bolt on parts. But what can I get? And I still don't want to put a ton of money into this truck. I might be asking a question that there isn't a good answer to. Is what I've done to it about all I can do with bolt on's with out killing my tranny? And would it be a good idea to have the torque management system disabled or is it more risk than its worth? I'm sorry I know I'm asking a lot of questions.

The only way you are going to get there is to do some work to the motor...

You have to build up the motor to boost it. Or if you want to go the normally aspirated route, you have to quite a bit of work to the motor just to get it to put out those numbers on its own.

I'm assuming you have the 4l60E. That tranny is going to need some work to it too just to get it to hold up.

Piddly things like a cold air intake, or bigger throttle body will not get you there.

And since you don't want to kill your fuel mileage, you aren't going to be happy either way, since making these modifications to get you there will require more air into the engine to get there. More air will require more fuel. Simple equation there results in lower fuel mileage.